Anna Maria Corazza Bildt (PPE). – Madam President, Commissioner, there are no more words to describe the suffering of children in Syria. Aleppo is hell on earth. All of Syria is a humanitarian catastrophe. We are talking about thousands of kids that are being slaughtered and denied help. Via Skype a few days ago in the European Parliament, some boys and girls shared with us: ‘we are left alone; all our friends died’. Their voices cannot go unheard. For many of them, life has been nothing but war and siege. What if they were our children?

When a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council, Russia, blocks even a humanitarian ceasefire, what is left of humanity? We call on the upcoming European Council to act firmly for an immediate ceasefire, unconditional access to humanitarian aid, and to protect children. At least UNICEF should have access to conduct vaccinations in all of Syria. An entire generation is at risk of dying from curable diseases. Are we going to allow Sarajevo to pale in front of Aleppo? So together, tonight, we should join forces for the children of Syria to end violence. Tonight we say to the children: ‘you are not forgotten’.

Julie Ward (S&D). – Madam President, just over a year ago, on 5 December 2016, storm Desmond broke the UK’s rainfall record, with more than 350 millimetres of rain falling on the county of Cumbria in a 24-hour period in my northwest of England constituency. A subtropical atmospheric river unleashed devastation on large parts of northern England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, the like of which had not been seen before. While some constituents had, sadly, experienced flooding several times in recent years, Desmond was unprecedented and, to make matters worse, was followed by storm Eva on Christmas Eve and storm Frank on 29 December. I pressed David Cameron relentlessly regarding an application for EU solidarity funds, and I am disappointed that the government’s progress on completing the paperwork has been so slow. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, volunteer groups such as aid organisations Ahmadiyya Youth and Al-Imdaad and Khalsa Aid joined the emergency services in the clean-up. But the greatest credit must go to Eden Flood Volunteers who over the past year have clocked up a total of 97 943 hours, worth more than GBP 783 542, supporting 20 000 flood affected families and businesses across nine counties, distributing an estimated 1.8 million worth of donated goods. Well done, you.

Deirdre Clune (PPE). – Madam President, at this time of the year many traffic accidents will be occurring and national authorities are making a concerted effort to reduce the number of accidents on our roads. Significant progress has been made at EU level in tackling road deaths in recent years; we seem to have had a regression in those figures.

We need to have further innovative measures to address this fact: it is notable, when you look at the number of serious injuries, that the reduction in those is lagging behind road deaths. We are not being as successful in that area: if you look since 2010, the number of people seriously injured in the EU was reduced by just 1.6% compared to an 18% decrease in the number of road deaths. So there has been a lot done in reducing our road deaths but still more needs to be done. We need now to look at serious road injuries and ascertain why we are not making progress in that area.

The Commission needs to introduce a target for the reduction of serious road injuries, and to bring forward measures in the road package next year to ensure that meaningful data are collected as to why we have this level of serious road injuries and to ensure that we are as effective in this area of serious injuries on our roads as we have been in road deaths.

Jasenko Selimovic (ALDE). – Madam President, in December 2015 the Commission concluded that Georgia and Ukraine have met all criteria for visa liberalisation. This was a victory especially for the citizens, who will be able to travel to the EU without a visa. It also sends a signal to the rest of the world that a path of credible reforms is the one to be rewarded. But since then the European Parliament and the Council have been delaying this decision for months. It is only last week that they managed to strike a deal on a visa suspension mechanism. One entire year has now passed since the publication of the reports from the Commission. I believe that the EU cannot afford to wait any longer. Ukraine and Georgia are two countries whose territorial integrity is threatened by Russia; they are desperately knocking on the EU’s door, and the answer from the EU cannot be: ‘Sorry, you will have to wait longer’.